Boxing figures that pick Harry Greb over Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Jack Dempsey

Burt Bienstock's father, a huge Tunney fan in 1922, witnessed Gene's only career defeat at Greb's hands and went to his grave well into the 1980's insisting Greb was the P4P GOAT. Around 2009, Stonehands89, then Steve Compton independently of me, came around to feeling that Greb was indeed greater than Robinson.

Burt clinched it upon his arrival in February 2010. (Burt shook hand with Robinson while Ray was still an amateur, and made it clear with Joe Rein that Robby was the greatest either ever saw. Not strictly a nostalgist, Burt also greatly admired GGG before he disappeared from the boards as "Art Ritis" made it impossible for him to type anymore.) Springs and Steve then went on to publish books about Greb. Springs wrote Smokestack Lightning about Greb's fabled 1919 campaign which ended 45-0. It's entirely possible Greb and Dempsey peaked on the same day, July 4, 1919 when Harry took Bill Brennan to school over the Championship Distance in Tulsa. (Steve was always calling BS on what Burt posted, but Springs never did and Burt attended many of the same historical bouts Joe Rein saw. Like Springs, Burt was extremely upset when "johngarfield" passed.)

He was indeed quoted as saying Dempsey would kill him after a few rounds. As for Harry's speed, Jack said, "Hell, Greb is faster than Benny Leonard!" Gene Tunney: "It was like fighting an octopus." (Tunney, who had many great quotes about Harry, was famously one of the pallbearers at Greb's funeral.) Mickey Walker: "Greb was crawling all over me." Mickey always conceded he lost to a post prime Greb, whose legs had noticeably slowed by then.

"It was like having an avalanche of boxing gloves dumped on you."

There was a limit to how tall a high quality HW was who he'd take on. He wasn't stupid in that respect, although fearless. He wasn't about to try Fulton, Morris, Willard, Firpo or other modern sized giants of his era, and he certainly couldn't one punch Wills twice like a post Langford did. Greb was fearless but pragmatic (especially after stepping outside his weight class with his eighth bout against Joe Chip, after he told friends he'd never do something that stupid again, and he never did).

As for allegations that Greb could've beaten all the best HWs (and many, including me, have Dempsey, Louis and Ali in our top three or five), Harry himself might've told them, "Get real!" in modern parlance. Greb ended his series with Tunney by declaring, "Gene, you're getting too big and strong for me."

He ended 1918 by losing to Miske. His next and final defeat with two good eyes was to Tommy Gibbons in May 1921. Master boxers like Loughran, Tunney and the Gibbons brothers could give him trouble. Peak for peak, among his actual opponents within his LHW size range (which leaves out the Tunney of 1928 who stopped Heeney), I think peak Loughran might give him the most trouble, being my choice to face the Greb of July 4, 1919. Between Gene's retirement and Sharkey-Loughran I, Tommy may have been the best HW in the world. He LITERALLY gave Max Baer nightmares with his jab before Maxie implored Loughran to teach him that punch. The Larruper developed a fine hard jab, as you can see in his final round with Schmeling.

Loughran defeated Sharkey in a rematch to get to Carnera, Braddock in his final LHW defense (looking as if he's shadowboxing Jimmy), and Max Baer. That's enough of a resume for peak Tommy to take on peak Greb with. (Like Greb, Loughran was literally fearless.)

 

You're comparing yourself to possibly the greatest fighter that ever laced up a pair of gloves.

Talk about realistic comparisons!

 

But that's the point. There's no actual fight footage, at least
any that can be verified. So some are relying on opinions of
men that may not have seen Ray Robinson, much less Monzon
or Hagler.....

 

Silly. There are weight classes for a reason.

 

The point to take away is not that these men were probably right, but that what they had seen with their own two eyes had led them to such beliefs.

 

definitely agree, Greb's available training footage shouldn't have any bearing on our ranking of him as a boxer. He looks no different from any other fighter of that era training, people just latch on to it cause thats the only footage.

 

Arcel did see Greb in competition, also Hagler and Monzon. He was Duran's trainer until the quit job in New Orleans for the second bout with SRL, but returned for Duran-Benitez in 1982. He co-trained Larry Holmes with Eddie Futch for Gerry Cooney. He rated Locche the best defensive boxer of all time, over Benitez and Pep. (I agree with this. Look at Fuji and Cervantes I, where he shut out Pambele over 15 rounds. Benitez got an early cut from a head butt early on with SRL, but somehow, it doesn't appear that butts ever had any significance even with Nicotino's huge cranium. At Pryor's peak, KO Magazine deemed El Intocable to be too untouchable for the wild Hawk.)

Ray Arcel went from entering boxing as a trainer in 1918, until retiring after Holmes-Cooney, but still observed boxing until his death at 94 in March 1994. That's 76 years of watching boxing and training over 2,000 pugilists. Benny Leonard was the first champion he trained, Larry Holmes was the last. The 20 world champions he trained included 14 HOFers (to date).

It seems certain that not only did he see Greb in competition, he probably worked against Harry from the opposing corner. He was already too prominent by the early 1920's not to have done this. He was training HOFer Frankie Genaro while Greb was still prime. It should be possible to locate instances where a noted Arcel boxer competed on the same card as Greb, most likely somebody like Abe Goldstein or Frankie Genaro. Printing out the records of Greb, Goldstein and Genaro or Leonard from 1920 to 1926, and synching them might offer a probable answer.

 

It’s fine to rank Greb higher than those guys on an all time p4p basis. But picking him to BEAT them head to head is a stretch.

 

We know that Greb-Tunney I was filmed, as was Greb-Walker. I sure wish they'd turn up.

 

Thank you for sharing. Certainly shed's light on how Greb impressed people, whether or not one agrees with the ultimate conclusions. I wonder if Greb beating Louis is really THAT implausible. I wouldn't bet on it for a one-off, but if you could fight the best of each, five trials, I suspect Greb would get the W at least once, a half-chance if they fought four times, and a 1/3 chance of taking one in a trilogy.

 

There is only one man born of woman that could defeat Greb, and that man is The Big Bang, Zhilei Zhang.

 

I would not rule it out, but I put Douglas Tyson betting numbers on Greb being the underdog.